If you love to export an OMF and your audio mixing in Logic, and wonder how to get your audio out of FCPX, join David Battistella as he walks through this workaround. Use this tutorial to take advantage of the four track output from doing a QT movie export, get a split track version of your cut into Logic or ProTools, and sweeten your audio as you wish.

Ok. I admit it. I love exporting an OMF and doing my audio sweetening and mixing in Logic. I can only hope that Apple makes this very seamless in a future version but until then, this is the big messy, not preferred way of doing it.

As I dove into another FCPX cut, I decided after I was finished to try a few things out. Separating an Audio/video workflow is something I like to do, so I got to thinking...How would I do an OMF if I wanted to? How could I? So I tried.

Now. I am sharing that with you.

I want to be clear that this is a workaround and not a way of getting an OMF out of FCP X directly. In this case, you have to use a few little tools in FCP X to get the audio out and then you can run things through a more traditional workflow.

You will find that there is a good, (but severely limited) way to be able to get split tracks out of FCP X so that you can get those tracks into a sound mixing software you like to create a finished two track mix.

There is an interesting thing when you export a QT movie from FCP X with a surround sound sequence. The QuickTime you export has FOUR tracks of audio instead of the TWO TRACKS we have become accustomed to.

Here is how you can take advantage of the four track output to get a split track version of your cut into Logic or ProTools. It's the long way there, but you can get there.

SOFTWARE NEEDED

FCP X

FCP 7

LOGIC or PROTOOLS

SOUNDTRACK

If you have a combination of these tools you can create an OMF to do a mix.

Disclaimer. This is a traditional Four Track output and does not provide you with handles for your mix. Think of it as pulling mix stems off a DA 88 -- or something like that. It's not ideal, but it does get your audio out of FCP X and into familiar mixing software.

Step 1
Edit your program in FCP X. My timeline looks like this.

Click on image for larger view

STEP 2
Select all of the clips in your primary storyline.

Click on image for larger view

STEP 3
Observe the AUDIO INSPECTOR TAB

Take heed that there is a PAN MODE selector. Set this to DIALOGUE and, depending on the size of your project wait for the beach ball as FCP X changes all of that audio to DIALOGUE Channel. It's important to note that any audio you set to DIALOGUE will be grouped into the dialog channel.

STEP 4
MUSIC TRACKS

Select the music tracks and set them to Stereo Left/Right in the inspector.

Click on image for larger view

STEP 5
EXPORT YOUR MOVIE
Use the command E version to export your movie. Yes. I know that all of these choices offend people. :)

I also switch it to PRORES LT. You have no option to output and AUDIO ONLY MOVIE. I don't know why. I think this is poor planning but maybe there is something we do not know yet.

In any case the move you generate can be used in your mix as the reference movie for setting sync and watching picture.

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